Leaking

Some secrets should (morally) be kept. Others should be exposed. The question for any specific secret is, of course, is whether it belongs in the first or second category.

Naturally, I am thinking about the WikiLeaks leak of the information about the war in Afghanistan. However, this can also be generalized to all such leaks.

Some government secrets do seem to fall into the first category. For example, leaking the names of undercover agents would seem to be wrong. Other government secrets fall into the second category, such as misdeeds being carried out by politicians or crimes being committed by officials.

Naturally enough, the folks in government tend to insist that all their secrets fall into the first category. They invoke national security and so on to keep things in the shadows. As involved parties, they can hardly be expected to consistently reveal what is really going on. As such, there does seem to be a real and legitimate need of leakers (and gadflies, as Socrates would argue).

As far as justifying leaks, the following reasons can be given.

First, in a democracy the citizens seem to have a right and need to know what is being done. Otherwise, they cannot make informed choices when voting. Also, they have the moral responsibility to be aware of what is being done in their name. If the people in government are unwilling to provide this information, then leaking would be justified.

Second, people in power have a natural tendency to seek to conceal what they are really doing and a desire to avoid criticism. This was true in Socrates time and is true today. Since these people are generally not inclined to reveal the truth, then leakers have to ensure that the people know what is going on in the shadows of their government.

Of course, there is a serious concern here: what should be leaked and what should be kept secret? In short, what do the people have a right to know and what is right to conceal?

In this case, I would go with Thoreau-the individual must examine his conscience and the information and make a moral judgment as to what to do. What she decides might be the right thing or the wrong thing, but that is true of any moral decision. To say that people should always rely on the judgment of those who are keeping the secrets is as mistaken as saying that all secrets should always be leaked.

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“We have seen the negative, sometimes deadly ramifications for those Afghans identified as working for or sympathizing with international forces,” the human-rights groups wrote in their letter, according to a person familiar with it. “We strongly urge your volunteers and staff to analyze all documents to ensure that those containing identifying information are taken down or redacted.”

“Taliban representatives have said publicly that they are searching the documents and plan to punish people who have helped U.S. forces.”

“Human-rights groups say they are increasingly worried about the execution of Afghan civilians by the Taliban and other insurgent groups. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, or AIHRC, published figures this week showing that such executions have soared in the first seven months of this year, to 197, from a total of 225 in all of 2009. “

Ethically, if the leaks have resulted in harm, then the Wikileakers would be in the wrong. If they did not properly conceal the names, then they would bear some responsibility for any resulting deaths.

Mike–it is illegal to release classified info. It’s not up to some fame-grabbing hacker to decide what reports the world gets to read. This is a rule of law country, right? Why are you giving wikileaks a pass? Do you think they did the right thing?

There’s is nothing earth-shattering in classified reports during counter-insurgency. No super-weapons stolen from the enemy. It’s about a network of humans working together to fight our enemies. These reports break up that network. They’ve done damage, not only by revealing informant names, but by showing the enemy how we think. This is a subtle war, despite the death. The little things matter a lot.

This documents did not reveal info that showed we ought not be in this war. They did however, in their revelation, make fighting the war harder than it already is. We gave the enemy something yet again. They know who we watch, they know what kinds of aspects we’re focusing on.